the third/other gender

Definition

Queer theory and civil movements – focused on alternative gender or transgender/transsexual identity, traditional praxes and knowledge of the ‘third’ gender – together initiated a new administrative and statistical category, beyond the binary opposition of woman/man (or female/male). It has been introduced in New Zealand and Germany (as ‘indeterminate/unspecified’ gender), and in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan either as the gender category of ‘other’, or ‘third gender’.